The problem with password strength meters found on many websites is they use the total number of combinations required in a brute-force crack to gauge a password's strength. What the meters fail to account for is that the patterns people employ to make their passwords memorable frequently lead to passcodes that are highly susceptible to much more efficient types of attacks.

Major advertisers including Nissan and Nationwide have suspended Facebook marketing campaigns after their ads appeared alongside offensive posts, highlighting the risks of a new form of "targeted" advertising. The cancellations follow complaints on Twitter and from women's rights organisations over the publication of misogynistic content, including images of abused women, on the social networking site.

Evan Williams and Medium, the anti-Tumblr. The New Blogging just got wordier.

If the first generation of self-publishing platforms best served serious writers, the second generation of self-publishing platforms -- think Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram -- have favored those whose messages come in the form of 140-character statements, images and GIFs. Enter Medium, a simple self-publishing platform launched last October to serve the next generation of bloggers who write. In the words of founder Evan Williams, who also co-founded Blogger and Twitter, "Medium is a beautiful space for reading and writing -- and little else. The words are central. They can be accompanied by images to help illustrate your point. But there are no gratuitous sidebars, plug-ins, or widgets. There is nothing to set up or customize."

Brilliant piece on the nuances of correlation, causation and insight in data analysis.

There has been a backlash lately against big data. From O'Reilly Media to the New Yorker, from Nassim Taleb to Kate Crawford, everyone is treating big data like a piñata. Gartner has dropped it into the "trough of disillusionment." I call B.S. on all of it. It might be provocative to call into question one of the hottest tech movements in generations, but it's not really fair. That's because how companies and people benefit from big data, data science or whatever else they choose to call the movement toward a data-centric world is directly related to what they expect going in.

Twelve days in the job and he's already making his mark; this satellite navigation chip firm will fill out its mobile offering.

Intel confirmed today that it had bought the satellite navigation chip business unit of ST-Ericsson, a joint venture operated by STMicroelectronics, the European chip maker, and Ericsson, the Swedish telecommunications equipment company. The money-losing joint venture is being wound down by its parents. Terms aren't being disclosed, but ST-Ericsson said the sale of the business unit, which supplies chips for GPS navigation systems and wireless phones, will reduce its annual cash needs by about $90 million. It's pretty clear why STMicro and Ericsson are shutting the JV down: It reported an operating loss of $158 million on sales of $256 million in the first quarter of 2013. STMicro said last month that it expected to spend as much as $450 million on the company during the transition and wind-down.

Classified blueprints of the new ASIO headquarters in Canberra have been stolen in a cyber hit believed to have been mounted by hackers in China. The ABC's Four Corners program has discovered the plans were taken in an operation targeting a contractor involved with building the site. The stolen blueprints included the building's security and communications systems, its floor plan, and its server locations. Experts say the theft exposes the spy agency to being spied upon and may be a reason why construction costs have blown out enormously.

Designs for many of the nation's most sensitive advanced weapons systems have been compromised by Chinese hackers, according to a report prepared for the Pentagon and to officials from government and the defense industry. Among more than two dozen major weapons systems whose designs were breached were programs critical to U.S. missile defenses and combat aircraft and ships, according to a previously undisclosed section of a confidential report prepared for Pentagon leaders by the Defense Science Board.

Jeremy Hammond, the LulzSec hacker and activist accused of breaking into security company Stratfor's servers and distributing internal files to WikiLeaks, has pleaded guilty to one violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. According to Hammond's defense site, Hammond agreed to a plea bargain that carries a maximum of ten years behind bars, though he has not yet been sentenced. He has already spent over a year in jail while awaiting trial, and supporters are pushing for him to be released with time served; before the bargain, he faced a maximum of 30 years.

It might feel like Second Life all over again, but there's real money behind Bitcoin startups now. Well, Bitcoin money.

In the last two months, we've seen the Winklevosses admit they have a crush on Bitcoin, Liberty City Ventures launch its own "Digital Currency Fund," San Mateo-based accelerator Boost.vc dedicate half of its next batch to Bitcoin startups, while Chris Dixon has said publicly that he's in and Fred Wilson finally made his first investment in a Bitcoin company. Today, we can check another growth milestone off the list. Entrepreneurs eyeing the Bitcoin market will be pleased to learn that BitAngels is launching (what it believes to be) the first multi-city angel network and incubator created to invest exclusively in cryptocurrency startups. Fittingly, in the spirit of Bitcoin, it's a distributed network of angels and entrepreneurs and one that was hacked together in a few days after the Bitcoin 2013 Conference.